


Through a Glass, Darkly

by titC



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Also Lots of Talking, Auntie Maze is awesome and also the voice of asskicking reason, Chloe has Star Trek flashbacks, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Gen, I resisted the latin title, Lots of eyes, a visit to the fam, and of the curly hair of revealz, but Detective Decker has the conn, loooooots of talking, lots of colours, no orphans on Lucifer's watch, people walking on Lego bricks offscreen, sometimes all options suck, sorry - Freeform, the return of the malfunctioning lighter of angst, vacuumed feathers don't work, which is full of irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:03:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9281426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Trixie is mysteriously ill. Revelations, Chloe's nerves of steel, Lucifer's somewhat misguided attempts at helping and feels ensue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My brain was still half-way caught in fluff month mode, and so it ended up like this.

The doctors couldn’t tell her what was wrong. Ever since Trixie had woken up screaming in terror because the world was dark, no one could explain her suddenly milk-white eyes, her growing weakness. On that first morning, Maze and her had run into her daughter’s room and she’d clung to them, crying and whimpering. Ever since, she’d felt her strength wane, her grip lose its intensity around her neck. She’d watched her grow scared of every noise that made her jump, unable to find the source.

The day before, they’d been up at the Griffith observatory, Trixie dragging her parents from the Tesla coil to the planets hanging from the ceiling downstairs to up again on the roof to the Planetarium. There had been an awkward moment when they’d ended up face to face with the lawyer, Charlotte Richards, here with her own kids; but all in all it had been a good day. And now…

Now, Dan, Chloe and her mother took turns staying with her in the white little room at the posh clinic Lucifer had insisted on. On some days, Maze would come in and kick them all out.

Lucifer, on the other hand, only came the once, when it all began; and Chloe didn’t quite know what to make of his visit. Maze probably briefed him beforehand, because he hadn’t seemed very surprised when he came in the ER looking for them; and they exchanged a loaded glance after he’d taken just a look at her daughter.

“Hello, Detective,” he said.

Trixie immediately turned her head in his direction, but for once she didn’t run to him. “Lucifer?” She even sounded unsure, and his lips thinned.

“Why are you not trying to squeeze me to death today?”

“I can’t see you,” she mumbled.

“Well, you can hear me. Just follow my voice.”

And her little monkey slid from the bed and, tentative and keeping a hand on the railing, tottered to him like an old lady without her cane. He didn’t make a move to help but watched her like a hawk, all the while complaining that the hospital was a dreary place and the food was probably atrocious and he was sure he’d have to take his suit to the cleaners to get rid of the smells. He caught her shoulders when she bumped in his legs, steadying her and awkwardly patting her head before releasing her.

“Se- so, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He looked as horrified as ever when she wrapped her arms around him, and he made help-me-now eyes at Chloe; but it was Dan who came to his rescue.

“Can you let the man breathe now, Trix?”

She made sad (white) eyes up at Lucifer, and he sighed. “Do you want to go back on the bed now?” At her nod, he grabbed her under the armpits and sat her on the thin mattress, taking a big step back as if he’d had way more child cooties than he could bear for the entire year.

He stayed a few more minutes, fidgeting, making and failing at stilted conversation before Maze put him out of his misery and dragged him outside of the curtained-off area. Chloe heard them talking, but couldn’t make out the words; it sounded like they were both angry at someone or something, though not at each other. She looked at Dan, who only shrugged – who knew, with them.

When Maze came back she told them about the clinic and settled back on the chair she’d commandeered before, until the doctors came back.

 

She had been in the dark for a week, stuck in a place she didn’t know, unable to do much. She was bored, she was scared, she was tired, and she was lost. Trixie curled a bit more around her teddy in the dark – it was always dark these days, but she knew it was night time. The world felt… muted around her; people walking more softly, talking more quietly. Maze was here with her, she could hear her turning the pages of a magazine.

She couldn’t sleep.

“Maze?”

“Yeah?”

“Are the doctors going to cure me?”

The magazine was dropped on a table. “Lucifer is trying to help.”

“Not the doctors?”

A sigh. “Your human doctors… are doing the best they can. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I’ve been here for _a week_.”

“But don’t you little humans sleep at night?”

“I’ve slept all day long!”

“And yet you’re still tired.”

Trixie did not want to admit she was. “I want to do _something_.”

“Hm.” She heard Maze stand up, go to the window. “Can you keep very, very quiet?”

“Yes!”

The window was opened, and she felt the cool night breeze on her face – for the first time in days, an air that wasn’t still and stale. She wanted to run, even if she wasn’t sure she _could_ run – she wouldn’t see where she was going anyway, wobbly legs or not.

Maze came to sit next to her on the bed, and took her hand. “Climb on my back, and grip tight.”

Trixie muffled her giggles in Maze’s shoulder as they went over the window and ran in the night, jumping so long and high between… buildings, maybe? that they were almost flying, for what seemed like hours. She never lost her grip.

When they came back after climbing the wall, she relaxed her limbs from around Maze and felt her tucking her into bed as she finally fell asleep, dreaming of the wind and the sky and the stars shining in the night.

 

Ten days. It had been ten days since Trixie had arrived in the clinic, and there was nothing new.

She kept getting more tired and sluggish everyday, she was still blind, her eyes empty of color. Without… light. She’d go with ‘light’ for now. Chloe was sick of those white corridors, sick of the nurses’ efficiency and the doctors’ slightly lost looks, sick of the people taking Trixie with them to help her get used to a life in the dark, and she knew Dan was too. They wanted their little monkey back, they wanted to hear her laugh, they wanted to not have to navigate a room strewn with Lego and textured toys and weirdly shaped things meant to help her develop her sense of touch.

Just before Dan pushed the door open, she put her hand on his wrist to stop him. Widening her eyes at him, she motioned for him to listen and keep quiet. There was an unusual voice inside – Lucifer’s. What was he doing here? He’d been avoiding them like the plague since his visit to the hospital.

“… it safe?”

“Maze wouldn’t let me be hurt,” Trixie said.

“But my… I’d rather you didn’t take her out anymore until the threat is over.”

“The kid likes going outside. She needs it.” Hah. As she’d guessed, it was Maze who sometimes made her little girl look suspiciously dishevelled some mornings. She hadn’t said anything because Trix probably needed it, and she trusted her flatmate. Why didn’t he?

“Also Maze has super powers!”

“What?”

“She can jump really high and run really fast and also she has two faces!”

There was a long silence, and Chloe and Dan looked at each other.

“What do you mean, two faces?”

“She showed me at Halloween.”

“ _Maze_.” His voice was venomous. What…?

“I told you it was a disguise, kid.”

“I’m not stupid. You couldn’t have put it on in like two seconds.” There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor, someone moving very fast, a thud. “Why are you angry at Maze?”

Dan looked like he wanted to barge in. _Trixie is safe_ , she mouthed at him. He nodded, but still turned to open the door. Chloe shook her head. _I want to know_. He clenched his jaw but relented. There was only silence now from Trixie’s room – silence, and someone breathing heavily.

Until she said, “do you have another face too?”

“No,” Lucifer said.

“Yes,” Maze’s voice.

“ _No_.” His sounded deeper, more like a snarl than his usual tenor.

“Can I see…” She took a deep breath. Oh, Trix. “Can I touch it?” Her baby was so brave.

“Let her. She won’t be afraid.”

“I won’t, I promise!”

“You do not know what you’re asking, child.”

“Mommy said sometimes you do things she can’t explain. I want to know!”

“It is very scary.”

“But I won’t see it anyway.”

He sighed, and finally Chloe couldn’t resist. She pushed the door a little so she could peer inside the room, and gasped. Dan opened it fully and they froze on the threshold.

Her little girl was on the knees of a – a – someone, wearing Lucifer’s clothes, with Lucifer’s ring on the hand that was holding her daughter’s arm, helping her reach his… face. He turned his head to the door and his – red. Red! – eyes widened. He hurriedly pushed her child away and got up from the white sheets, looking down; but Trixie caught his jacket. “Lucifer?” He stayed there between bed and door, unmoving and stiff, unwilling to break her hold, his eyes trained on the floor.

His face sort of melted back to the one Chloe knew, and she heard Dan hyperventilating behind her. “What the actual fu – hell?” he hiccuped.

Maze smiled, a bitter and humorless smile. “Precisely.”

“Lucifer?”

“Detective. Ah. Detectives.” She’d never heard him sound so… brittle, maybe. Stretched thin, like a tight-rope walker about to lose his balance – or, maybe, on a rope that had suddenly slackened under his feet. Unsteady. He looked like he could see a long, long fall waiting, calling for him.

“Explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain. I’ve explained many times already. I just… I should go. I’m sorry.” He glanced at Dan before looking away again. “Dr Linda should be able to help him, if he doesn’t… get over it.” He tried again to tug his jacket from Trixie’s grasp, but she tightened her fingers.

“What happened to you?” She didn’t sound scared. Well, that must be the one good thing about being blind – not seeing the burned, scarred mess that was _Lucifer’s face_. But he only shook his head for an answer.

“I’d like to know, too.”

“Decker, you _know_. He told you often enough.”

“But…”

Maze stalked to her. “Look, you saw him, you’re fine, there’s nothing to be afraid of; he’s still the same old Lucifer. Your ex on the other hand…” She poked him in the stomach with a finger, and smirked when he jumped back. “He’s a little less lily-white, and so a little more shocked. It’ll pass.”

“And you…?”

“You know, too. Which means there are things we should talk about.” She shoved Dan hard against the wall. “Come on, snap out of it. Stay with the kid, there are things we should talk about.”

“Maze, no. It’s too dangerous.”

“What is?” Dan’s voice was shaky, but he sounded sane enough.

“Nothing. Stay here.” Maze looked back at Trixie. “We’ll be back, Trixie. You can let go of Lucifer.”

She did, albeit slowly, probably not trusting he wouldn’t bolt and never be back. She wouldn’t have released him at all if she could see his face, somewhere between terrified and resigned.

Maze took his elbow and Chloe’s and they left Dan in the room, still looking shell-shocked but mostly okay, from what she could see. She dragged them to the patio where some chairs, tables and benches waited for patients and visitors who wanted a bit of sunlight in their eyes, of warmth on their faces.

“There are things you should know.”

“ _More_ things I should know?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, it’s already a bit too much as it is. I don’t know if I can…” She took a shaky breath.

“Hold it together, you’ll freak out later. No time for that now.” She turned to Lucifer’s bowed head. “Tell her.”

They looked at him, fiddling with a cigarette and his lighter. It wasn’t cooperating, but it could be because he was jittery, she supposed. He ignored them, and when Maze kicked his shin he waved a hand in her direction. “You know everything.”

“It’s _your_ mother, and it’s _your_ choice.”

“It’s the Detective’s.”

“Fine, whatever. Now tell her.”

He kept silent and, fed up, Chloe took his lighter and put the cigarette in her mouth, lit it, then stuck it back between his lips. “Now talk.”

“Didn’t know you had ever smoked,” he finally said after inhaling deeply from the cigarette.

“ _Talk_.”

He sighed, looking at his hands, at the ash falling to the ground. “You know Charlotte Richards.” She nodded. “My mother escaped hell, and now inhabits her body. The lawyer herself is very dead, but… I made her go back to that life. The stay-at-home husband, the job, the children. They still have her, sort of. Until the day they don’t.” He brought the cigarette back to his lips, closed his back-to-brown eyes as the tobacco filled his lungs. If he had lungs. Did he have lungs? She thought his fingers shook a bit less afterwards. Maybe. “She wants one thing: go back to heaven, get her revenge on dad. She tried to kill you. I think she’s behind what’s happening to your daughter.”

Chloe’s lips moved a bit, shaping words that she didn’t say. What was she supposed to focus on first? The demon flatmate, the heaven and hell thing, the lawyer trying to kill them, said lawyer being Lucifer her partner – _Lucifer_ _the devil_ – ’s mother? Her mind was a jumble of lights flashing and alarms blaring and a bland voice repeating, red alert, red alert. Nothing makes sense and Trixie is in danger. Red alert. She clenched her jaw and focused. “But… but why?”

“She’s trying to manipulate Lucifer into giving you up.”

“What?”

“You’re immune to him. There’s something about you that she thinks will allow her to get back to heaven, but it would probably mean sacrificing you. Hitching a ride with you when you go to heaven or something. So far we’ve managed to keep her away from you and Trixie, but it won’t last forever.”

Oh. _Oh_. “She was at the observatory that day.” And she’d talked to her daughter. She’d smiled at her. Maze’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “But how…”

“My mother is powerful, Detective. She is a goddess. Even inhabiting a human body, she can… I should have tried to find a way to send her back to hell before – well, before.” He threw his cigarette butt away from them. “If I still had my wings, your daughter…”

Chloe looked at Maze, who shook her head. “Angel feathers have powerful healing properties, but that idiot burned his, and his stupid brother’s are worth nothing since he fell.”

He raised his head in surprise. “You found them?”

“In his vacuum cleaner, of all things. Tested them, but they’re no use.”

“But is there anything else we can do?”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“There are options, but we don’t know which one might work,” Maze added.

“Okay. Lay them out for me.”

He kept silent, and Maze frowned at him before starting to list them. “One, Lucifer kills his mother; hopefully this is enough to break her spell on Trixie. If he can. Two, you die, Charlotte goes to heaven, she doesn’t need to maintain the spell on your daughter. Three, Lucifer dies, goes back to hell, and it derails her plans of a family reunion.”

Chloe’s heart was beating frantically, and she realized she hadn’t breathed for far too long. “And… is there an option where no one dies?”

“There is one where Trixie dies. It’s the one where we do nothing.”

“Then it’s an easy choice. If what you say is true – ” Maze rolled her eyes “ – I know what I have to do. I can’t let my girl… I can’t.”

“So what, you’ll be the heroic parent? You’ll let her grow up without – with the douche? You… There is another solution. There _is_ , I just haven’t found it yet.” He stood up and started to pace, but Maze shoved him back and made him stumble into a table.

“Remember what happened the last time you thought there was a way out?”

Chloe couldn’t decipher the expression on his face. He didn’t move for a few seconds, then abruptly turned on his heel and stalked away from them. They watched him until he turned around the corner of the building, in the direction of the parking lot.

“What happened?”

For a while, there was only the noise of cars on the road down the hill, the wind in the low shrubs around the patio. “He killed his brother.” Maze looked back at her. “For you.”

“But I…” Lucifer? Lucifer, a killer? For her? She didn’t know what to feel. Horror? Awe? Fear?

“And there’s something else. Something he doesn’t know.”

“I’m not sure I can take anything else right now.” Seriously. Why wasn’t it over?

“Focus, Chloe.”

“I, uh. Yes. Yes, okay.” Deep breaths, she thought. Deep breaths. Think of Trixie. Forget about everything else.

“Your conception was a miracle.”

“Uh?”

“Your parents couldn’t conceive. He,” she said pointing to the sky, “sent Amenadiel to bless your mother’s womb.”

“Does this happen often?”

“Hah. No, it doesn’t. It’s usually ridiculously pious old women rewarded by god, not… this. Charlotte thinks it means you are her key to heaven.”

“And Lucifer doesn’t know this.”

“No. And he can’t know.”

“Why? You think he’d do something idiotic?” Maze only raised her eyebrows. “I don’t feel special, you know. I don’t even believe – well, I mean.” She looked at her flatmate _the demon_. “Maybe a little?”

Chloe put her head in her hands. She could feel her elbows digging above her knees, the weight of it all suddenly making everything heavier. What was she supposed to do, anyway? What was she supposed to think?

“Right, so… My crazy partner’s the devil. His father sent his angel brother to create me. His mother wants to use me to get back at her ex. I have to die to save my daughter and Lucifer will go off the deep end. Again. And Trixie… will grow up an orphan.”

“It’ll be much, much worse than last time. Raise all the demons of hell and storm heaven worse. But Trixie will be safe. Whatever he does, she’ll be safe.”

Chloe felt a sob try to claw its way out of her, but she swallowed it down. “It’s too much. It’s all… too much.”

“You were put on this earth for a purpose. We don’t know what it is exactly, but…”

“But, I can take someone… up, with me, when I die? Because I won’t go to hell?”

“Definitely not hell. Trust me.” Yeah, demon. _Demon_. She’d know, probably. “Don’t tell Lucifer, but I think you were meant for him. You were meant to be  his key back there, if he ever chose to go back.”

“Chose? I didn’t think it was a matter of choice.”

“Maybe things are different now. Maybe his father changed his mind. Maybe he just never saw the door was always open. Who knows?”

“And instead I’m taking that woman up and away from Trixie. I don’t know, it seems…” She let out a long breath. Here she was, planning to die and pondering what it would mean. _He’s gonna get me killed_ , she’d thought when she’d first met him. Well. His insane delusions had caught up with her now. “How do I do this? How much time to I have to prepare?”

Maze sat next to her, bumping her shoulder. “Chloe, are you actually going to do it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Probably. Not a good one, though.”

“Yeah.” She looked at the gravel under her feet, gray and dull. “I don’t want to die.”

Maze only looked grim.

 

Was she insane? Had she really gone around the bend? Chloe looked at her gun, then at Charlotte – or rather Lucifer’s mother in a Charlotte Richards suit – and wondered. Could she do it? Did it have to be that way?

She’d figured she probably had to do it herself, she didn’t trust that woman not to screw her over. She’d talked with Maze, planned; she’d made a will. She’d said her goodbyes, without anyone being the wiser. Well, she’d written them to some; to Trixie for when she was a bit older, to Lucifer. She couldn’t face him, she knew she’d spill everything.

She turned the corner, prepared to shoot.

 

A tiny black hole opened up in her heart and was swallowing everything around it. It felt like all of her was sucked into a tiny painful point _right there_ in her chest.

Just as she’d aimed her gun, Lucifer had jumped out from behind a car and grabbed his mother, one of Maze’s knives in hand. Charlotte’s eyes had widened in surprise and Chloe’s in horror as she saw him stab the not-lawyer, then his own gut. “To hell with you,” he’d said, and his grip around her neck had remained strong and unwavering even as the rest of his body was slowly folding down, taking her down with him.

She’d run to them, gun re-holstered, and her gaze had gotten caught in his. There was pain, surprise and resolve all mixed in there as he choked out, “you’ll live;” and she didn’t know what to do.

She watched his eyes flutter closed.

 

He blinked his eyes open. There was light, too much light, and he closed them again. He hadn’t seen so much light since – ah. And back then, it hadn’t been painful, either. Not until… Well. He forced himself to look around. He’d never thought he’d be back, but because of a fluke – because of the Detective, probably; wasn’t she always changing things around him, in him? – he hadn’t taken his mother to hell and away from the spawn. He’d brought her right where she wanted to be.

Well, at least it was still away from the clingy little human, he supposed. Except he’d probably be killed on sight by the first of his siblings to stumble upon them, especially if – yes, of course. He was wearing his demonic skin. It figured.

He rolled away from Charlotte – still in her human body, it seemed – and sat up. The Detective was nowhere near them, thankfully. She must still be down there, away from the craziness and danger that was his bloody family.

“What did you do?” mum hissed.

“Well, aren’t you where you wanted to be?”

“You tried to kill me! Your mother!”

“But I didn’t. Kill you, that is.”

“You just did something stupid and heroic. Again.”

“I – what?”

The Detective was sitting on a tall rock just above them. “I’d like it if you were less prone to getting yourself killed or at least trying to. Maze is fed up with it, and so am I.”

“What are you doing here? Are you… No, you weren’t meant to!” Not only had he failed at taking mum back to hell, but he’d also taken the Detective where she shouldn’t have ended before many, _many_ decades. He looked at the knife in his hand. Perhaps if he stabbed himself again it would work, this time? She was right next to – well, just above – him. He could maybe at least hope to escape this place.

But then, he heard wings beating, feet touching the ground lightly behind him. He sighed long and deep. Defeat, he thought. It all tastes like dust and defeat.

“You’ve always loved grand gestures, haven’t you?” Michael. He hadn’t forgotten that voice. “Bringing our mother, father’s latest miracle and yourself at the same time, quite a feat.”

Miracle? “Spare me the speech and do what you have to.”

“Prickly, eh.” He heard some shuffling. “Father wants to talk to you. Will you come, brother?”

“No.”

“Samael…”

“That is not my name.” He stood up, tugged on his sleeves. Turned around quickly before he could change his mind. “Is this the face of _Samael_?”

“He goes by Lucifer.” Oh, Detective; don’t bring attention to you, Michael and his ilk…

“I grew up with Samael. Lucifer is only a small part of who you are. Why won’t you embrace it all again, as father wants you to?”

“I don’t…” He took a deep breath. No need to yell. No point in anger. He looked at his mother. “I suppose I should tell, ah. Someone, about what you did. About the real Charlotte Richards, too. Before leaving. But…” His eyes went back to the Detective.

“I’ll take her back, and check on the little one. I’ll make sure they’re safe. I swear it, brother. On my sword, I swear it.” Well then. That was the whole point of it, whatever happened to him – as long as they were safe, what did he care? His – _brother_ – came closer, lowered his voice. “But… she won’t remember. She can’t know.”

Of course. _Of course._ Could he expect anything else? He looked up at her one last time, the knowledge of who he was and her acceptance on her face, in her small smile – impossible to understand, impossible to forget. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to survive seeing her again without this. So, one last time, he drank her in and ignored that tightening in his chest, and for an instant he wasn’t the devil anymore.

And then Lucifer went, to talk to, well, someone; if he didn’t get a heavenly spear through the gut before getting there. Honestly, it wouldn’t be much worse than the, ah, chat looming ahead. The good thing with being who he was, at least, was the heat he could generate in himself. No drop of water could survive anywhere on him, anywhere on his face if he wished it so. He was Satan, fiery king of hell and prince of lies. He was Beelzebub, merciless and heartless and a monster. A monster.

 

Chloe woke up to a small hand shaking her shoulder, the already-fraying threads of a strange dream dissolving into the bright light of the clinic. She raised her head from her arms on the hospital bed, and let reality come back to her. Dan was asleep in the armchair on the other side of the bed, drooling a little; and Trixie – Trixie…

“Mommy?”

“Sorry monkey, I fell asleep.”

“Mommy, I feel really good this morning. Can we go out now? Can we go get burgers? Or ice-cream? Or cake?” Her eyes were still the color of pure, clear snow.

“I don’t know. We should ask a doctor first.”

Trixie jumped down from the bed, groping around until she found her little pink hoodie. She slipped it on, not knowing it was inside out. “But I’m ready! Can we go now?”

She did seem better, but… after so long here at the clinic, could she dare hope?

“I’ll go talk to a doctor, see if we can get out for a little while, all right? Can you stay with dad? He’s in the armchair to your left.”

“Okay, mom!” She turned and walked, slow but steady, to her father, climbed on his knees. She knew her room well by now. He woke up and curled his arms around her, cocking his head at Chloe.

“She wants to eat out, I’ll just check with a doctor first.” He nodded, and she left her brave little girl who never complained of the dark – was it dark? What did she not-see, from behind the clouds in her eyes? She missed their twinkle when she laughed and their crinkle when she smiled; she missed – oh, how she missed.

 

Finally! Finally, she was going home! Home, which would be a whole new world, because she would _see_ it, and now everything her eyes fell on was new and pretty. Colors, she wanted colors; and mom had said yes, of course when she’d asked for bright blue and yellow and orange walls. She’d learned to touch too, and she was touching it all – running her hands over each piece of fabric and furniture and stone and metal she could find, closing her eyes to better feel then opening them again to compare her senses.

It was all so _new_.

A tall man knocked and came in while mom and dad were going around the room, checking they had packed all her stuff in the room for the last time; but she _knew_ she hadn’t forgotten anything. She’d looked everywhere.

“Hi, I’m Dr Raphael,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ve been called to see if we can help your daughter.”

Mom seemed surprised, but shook his hand anyway. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“I’m fine now! Look!” Trixie tugged on his white, rough coat.

He bent to her, peering into her face. “Hmm,” he said. “I thought you couldn’t see.”

“I can now!”

“She woke up this morning perfectively fine. Your colleagues have checked all they could check, and they still don’t know what happened but… we’re grateful. You’ve all been very good with Trix, and…” Mom looked strangely sad, she even sniffled a little. “Thank you so much. The staff here was wonderful. And then our friends; I can’t believe Maze came for you, and Lucifer paid for all of this, and…”

Dad put an arm on mom’s shoulders. He looked… sort of sad, too? She could still remember a time when they’d hug, when they’d kiss, even (ew). Now they didn’t, and Trixie wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it, really. “Yeah, I – Chloe’s right. We are.” He held out his hands to the doctor, who took it before turning to leave; but just as he did –

“Ah, sorry. You’re, ah, Beatrice, right?” She nodded. “You have, right here… Let me.” He took something from behind her ear – a little brown feather. “Oh.”

“How can there still be some around here? I thought we’d found them all!” Dad looked a bit upset, but mom – mom looked at the feather like it reminded her of something.

“There were lots of feathers everywhere when I woke up,” Trixie said.

“Yeah, everywhere. Especially around you. Don’t know what happened to them, now that I think about it. Someone must have cleaned them up when they checked your sight had really come back.” Dad smiled at nothing – no, at her.

The doctor rummaged a bit in the bedsheets and extracted a few more feathers – a light blue one, a silver-grey one, an off-white one. A dark red one, a white one, a gold one. “May I, ah, I keep them? I’m a… a bird watcher. It’s a hobby.”

“Could you recognize the birds they belonged to?”

“Maybe. I’d have to, ah. Study them.”

Her parents didn’t seem to care either way, but Trixie did. “Can I keep one? Just one?”

The doctor looked down at her. “Er, why not. Which one do you want?”

She pointed at the white one, and he handed it to her, eyebrows slightly raised.

“I thought you wanted colors everywhere,” mom said. “This one is white.”

“But mom, it’s the softest!”

“It’s… that it is, child.” He made an odd face at it, then straightened before saying goodbye and leaving for good.

“…So that was strange,” dad said.

“You don’t say.”

But Trixie didn’t find it strange: it was far from being as strange as being blind and stuck in bed for two weeks had been, or strange as touching Lucifer’s other face – ooh, she would be able to see it, now! And best of all: she was going home!

 

A mysterious illness, a weird dream, a miraculous recovery, a very cagey flatmate and a Lucifer that had gone incommunicado… She was a cop, she wanted answers. She thought she could almost grasp the truth, and then she felt dread and her head would ache and she shied away from it, but Chloe reckoned she did know where to get those answers.

A week after they went back home, she left Dan, Trixie and Ella wallpapering her daughter’s room before painting over it (Ella had, apparently, skills that extended beyond karaoke, car-stealing and forensics) and drove to Lux.

Life would return to normal on Monday – back to the precinct for her and Dan, back to school for heir little monkey. She tried to tell herself she only wanted to know if Lucifer would be there with her, if he would still be her partner. She had the weekend to convince him.

This early in the afternoon, the club was closed, but his private lift never was to her; and she tried not to fidget as it went up. No one could see her, she knew, but apprehension was still coiling in her. The doors opened, and she walked in. It was all quiet; no music, no pianos strings vibrating, no ice cubes tinkling in a tumbler.

Still, she could feel his presence. There was something… warm, something familiar and comforting and frightening, too, if she let it get to her. She peered into his library, on the balcony, then went to his bedroom. Hopefully she wouldn’t find him with company.

She didn’t.

He was asleep – she’d never seen him asleep, she realized. He’d watched over her in the hospital, and she tried to forget about that time she got drunk and tried to kiss him, but the other way round…

It looked like he’d showered just before going to bed, too; maybe he’d been planning to go out then changed his mind. A still damp towel had been thrown carelessly half over a stool, his hair seemed soft and free of product. She smiled at the wild curls. The few times he’d been a bit dishevelled in her presence, they hadn’t looked that soft and untamed. It made him look younger.

He’d probably shaved too, his usual stubble was only the merest, slightest shadow still. It was slightly disturbing to realize she noticed these things – how fast his beard was growing ( _fast_ ), how the amount of product he put in his hair revealed his state of mind.

His bed was huge, and yet it seemed he was taking all the space available to him. He was a big guy. She sometimes forgot. His face was turned to the window, and the afternoon sun didn’t disturb his slumber. His breathing was deep and slow, his bare chest going up and down; slow and steady. It was hard not to picture herself lulled to sleep by the soothing rhythm. His warmth. She remembered his warmth, when he’d hugged her – well, when she’d made him hug her. The memory made her lips twitch up.

She walked around the mattress, brushing past a cloth bag from which – huh. It had looked empty but as her foot disturbed it, a bit of fluff floated out and stuck to her shoe. She bent to pick it up. It looked like down from a pillow, and reminded her she’d come for answers.

She sat on the edge of the bed, careful not disturb the slate-colored sheet that half covered him (not that she hadn’t seen him naked before, but she didn’t need the distraction), and before she’d made up her mind about shaking his shoulder to wake him up, he stopped breathing and opened his eyes. Nothing else moved for a while.

“Hi,” she said in the silence. He didn’t even blink. “You wouldn’t answer my calls, so I came.” Still no reaction. “Lucifer? Are you going to say something?”

His lips moved a little. “Detective, I…” He frowned and she smiled at his croaky not-really-morning voice. “How is your offspring?”

“She’s fine. Better than fine.”

“That’s, ah, good?”

“Yes it is. She’s going back to school on Monday. No one can tell me why she got sick and then suddenly better, or why she was blind for two weeks.” She poked him in the stomach. “You wouldn’t have an idea about it at all…?”

He got up on his elbows and tried to slither away from her, but she was having none of it. Her palm flat on his chest, she pushed him back down. "Detective?”

“Answers, Lucifer. I want answers. All I have is a strange dream, feathers in Trixie’s bed, and a Dr Raphael acting weird.”

“ _Dr Raphael?_ ” His face went from carefully blank to half-way between horror and hilarity.

“Do you know him?”

“He’s… mousy hair, grey eyes, sounds Canadian?” She nodded. “My brother.”

“What?”

“More importantly, what was he doing there?”

“You’ll really have to explain your family one day. He said he’d been called by the clinic for Trixie, but by then she was fine. He found some feathers on her bed, and took them away with him – well, Trix kept a white one.”

His mouth did something twisty and peculiar. “What did you do with it?”

“She’s keeping it in her favorite book. What’s with them, Lucifer? What’s with that bag I almost stepped on?” She waved a hand to the foot of the bed.

“Detective… what did you mean by strange dream?”

“Well, it… Um.” In the light of day, sitting next to a very human-looking Lucifer, it all seemed too fantastical. Not of this world. Red eyes and two scarred faces, magical sickness and miracle cure, a winged dude and – and a winged dude. Miracles. Scars. Feathers.

He looked as if he understood what was going on in her mind – and as if it scared him. Why should _he_ be? _He_ was… well, who he was; and she was the (mostly) plain human. She’d worked with him, she’d slept in his bed, this very bed; she’d… go – hel – _damn_ , she’d trusted him and Maze with her daughter, and they’d kept her safe and happy. He’d died for them, she remembered. He’d killed.

She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Should she run away? She thought she should want to, but… she didn’t. She didn’t. She hadn’t even removed her hand from his skin, and she watched it slide a bit lower, right where Malcolm had shot him. There had been so much blood, red and warm and everywhere. She peered at his smooth, pale stomach.

“You’re still here,” he whispered. “Are you in shock? Are you going to shoot me?”

He’d die, she realized. Well, maybe not permanently, but she had that much power over him; a power no one else had here on earth. And he never left her side because of it. “No.” She tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. There was too much in it for such a simple, everyday thing as a smile. She closed her eyes for a moment, and she focused on her other senses – the sound of his slightly unsteady breathing and the muffled city noises floating in from outside; the warmth of his skin. She wanted to taste it, and she felt herself blush.

Her eyes flew open when he gently tucked a few locks of her hair behind her ear. “Detective… Please.” Did he know what he was asking for? The back of his fingers lingered on her cheek, and she caught them. Kissed them.

“Chloe.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled a little, and he sounded so full of wonder and joy when he repeated her name. “Chloe,” he said, voice low. “Chloe.” The pads of his fingers feathered over her mouth, delicate and careful. “You can ask your questions, you know. I can see them wanting to get out.” His hand went back into her hair.

“I don’t know where to begin, really. Trixie… it was you, wasn’t it?” She felt him stiffen under her palm and start to draw away. “No, I mean – her getting better, getting her sight back.” He relaxed, languid again.

“Yes.”

“How?” It must have something to do with those feathers. She shifted on the mattress and grasped his wrist, tugging gently to make him sit up; and he complied. “Does it have anything to do with, ah.” She gestured over his shoulder.

“Do you remember going…?” He looked up instead of saying the word.

“Yes. I remember your brother, too.” He’d had golden wings, the same color as one of the feathers they’d found in Trixie’s bed.

“I saw, well, I talked to many of my siblings. To my father, too.” His eyes were fixed on his fists bunching the bedsheets. “About mum. About the lawyer. About… you.” A deep breath. “Father said he wanted to… to be… to give…” His voice broke.

“To give you a present? To reconnect with you?”

He nodded, head still down; and she couldn’t stop it anymore – she wrapped her arms around his him, coaxed him forward, forward, just a little bit further; until his own arms circled her waist and his forehead ended on her shoulder and she could feel his every shaky exhale warm her skin. His naked back was right there under her eyes, smooth skin broken by large, rough scars.

“Angel feathers, right? They’re angel feathers? Your brothers’ and sisters’?” He made a little noise that she took as a yes. “They were meant to heal, right? To heal you?” Slow and gentle, her hand went down to the edge of a scar. Rested on it. She felt his whole body shudder under her touch. “But you used them for Trixie.”

“And…” He lifted his head. His face looked dry, but his eyes were red and puffy. “And Amenadiel and Charlotte.”

“Charl – what?”

“My mother left her vessel, and her children would have been orphans; but… as long as she’d been using it the actual soul was still in there, tethered to the living body. She’s going to have a hard time explaining the time mum occupied it, though.” He ran his fingers through his hair, making him look even less like Satan and more like a little boy. A 6 foot something little boy who was the devil, somehow.

“You, Lucifer Morningstar, are a big softie.” He looked away and she couldn’t help it; she took his chin and tenderly turned it back to her, and this time – this time, she wasn’t drunk, no one would interrupt, nothing would stop them. This time, she kissed him, and to hell – hah – with miracles and angels and the divine; it was just her and him and nothing else.

Under her hands, the skin of his back smoothed out. They only realized it much, much later.

 

 


End file.
